f late, the same
skilled hand which had refashioned the Hickses' social circle usually
managed to exclude from it the timid presences of the two secretaries.
Their banishment was the more displeasing to Lansing from the fact that,
for the last three months, he had filled Mr. Buttles's place, and was
himself their salaried companion. But since he had accepted the post,
his obvious duty was to fill it in accordance with his employers'
requirements; and it was clear even to Eldorada and Mr. Beck that
he had, as Eldorada ungrudgingly said, "Something of Mr. Buttles's
marvellous social gifts."

During the cruise his task had not been distasteful to him. He was glad
of any definite duties, however trivial, he felt more independent as the
Hickses' secretary than as their pampered guest, and the large cheque
which Mr. Hicks handed over to him on the first of each month refreshed
his languishing sense of self-respect.

He considered himself absurdly over-paid, but that was the Hickses'
affair; and he saw nothing humiliating in being in the employ of people
he liked and respected. But from the moment of the ill-fated encounter
with the wandering Princes, his position had changed as much as that
of his employers. He was no longer, to Mr. and Mrs. Hicks, a useful and
estimable assistant, on the same level as Eldorada and Mr. Beck; he had
become a social asset of unsuspected value, equalling Mr. Buttles in
his capacity for dealing with the mysteries of foreign etiquette, and
surpassing him in the art of personal attraction. Nick Lansing, the
Hickses found, already knew most of the Princess Mother's rich and
aristocratic friends. Many of them hailed him with enthusiastic "Old
Nicks", and he was almost as familiar as His Highness's own aide-de-camp
with all those secret ramifications of love and hate that made
dinner-giving so much more of a science in Rome than at Apex City.

Mrs. Hicks, at first, had hopelessly lost her way in this labyrinth of
subterranean scandals, rivalries and jealousies; and finding Lansing's
hand within reach she clung to it with pathetic tenacity. But if
the young man's value had risen in the eyes of his employers it had
deteriorated in his own. He was condemned to play a part he had
not bargained for, and it seemed to him more degrading when paid in
bank-notes than if his retribution had consisted merely in good dinners
and luxurious lodgings. The first time the smiling aide-de-camp had
caught his eye ove